Luckies
by Unprofound
Summary: Joe Cabot instructs Mr. Blonde to accompany Mr. Pink to Karina's Wholesale Diamonds a week before the robbery to get a feel for the place. Vic's just going to get the job done.


Luckies

Rated for language. Light Pink/Blonde slash, set before the day that robbery occurs and just a little bit on the morning that it happens. Constructive criticism is earnestly appreciated, in fact reviews of any kind are really, but please don't waste your time flaming.

**I do not own Reservoir Dogs, of course. I do not gain profit from this. Reservoir Dogs belongs to Quentin Tarantino, Artisan Entertainment and Miramax Films.** (And maybe some other folks a lot bigger than little old me.)

* * *

'Joseph,' Vic mumbled as he answered the phone squawking beside his bed, 'What is it?'

'Hey I'm sorry to wake you my boy,' Joe Cabot declared through crackling static. Vic sat up and glanced briefly at the vacant spot beside him. The woman from the night before had left already, but he could still smell her perfume caught up in his sheets. It wasn't as pleasing as it had been when he was tanked full of whiskey, in fact in the bruised dawn light it felt stale in his lungs. He untangled himself from his sheets and sat up, rubbing tiredness from his eyes.

'Don't worry about it,' Vic replied. He gazed back to the empty space again, thinking he would have missed feeling a woman's softness and sweetness after four years much more than he really did. He padded out of the room towards his cramped kitchen, his initial instinct to make coffee. This simple act was still somewhat of a novelty. He flicked his shoebox of a television set on as he walked by but didn't look at it. It was too early for anything but weather reports and cartoon shows to be on the tube, neither of which particularly seized him.

'This job we got coming up. I'm sending you and Mr. Pink into the store. I want you to look around, I want you to get a feel for the place. See where everything is, get the layout in your head. Capisce?'

'I hear you,' Vic answered.

'Pink because he's too nervous,' Joe said it '_noy-vis_', and Vic realised he'd missed the old bastard's voice in his ear, 'I mean he's a good fella, I known him since he was a kid and he always done right by me, he got a good head on his shoulders. But he don't feel prepared for somethin' and he's edgy. I don't want nothin' fuckin' us up tomorrow Vic.'

_Four years in the can and I get out so I can babysit._ Vic grunted non-committally. He didn't appreciate that but he held his tongue. It wouldn't take long for Joe to remember what he hired him for.

'I want you to go with him because you gonna be on security. You take a good look at where the guys are while Pink settles down, all right?'

'Sure Joe. Sure. When?'

'Later on today, nine o'clock. You meet him for breakfast. Greasy Joe's at Callahan, you know where that is. You drive to the place. In and out in 10 minutes, don't let him act suspicious or nothing. He's good as long as he's settled, and I don't wanna hear no more "Joe, Joe, I ain't sure about this part of the plan, what if this happens, what if that happens, Joe?", you got it?'

'I got it Joe,' Vic said blandly.

'That's my boy,' Joe rumbled affectionately before hanging up. Vic poured his coffee and thought a little about how Joseph Cabot was like a father to him, about how as far as family went, Eddie and Joe were all he had, and how that was the only reason he was going to do shit like this for anybody anymore.

On the TV set an animated cockerel gibbered and a grouchy Elmer Fudd stomped off through the woods.

* * *

Mr. Pink was already sat at a booth in the corner of the diner – an unremarkable place nestled on the outskirts of town that served mostly as a truck stop, or when the occasion arose, as a meeting place for the seedier of the city's characters.

He flinched in surprise as Vic sat down across from him, but his shoulders dropped a little when he slid off his sunglasses and pocketed them. A neat survey of the table and Vic came to the conclusion that Mr Pink had downed at least two cups of coffee already.

'You been waitin' on me long?' Vic asked, not aware that he was late.

'What? No. No I just got here a little early is all. That and I really want a cigarette,' he responded, glancing over the torn up sugar packets and brushing a few stray grains away with a fingertip.

Vic tossed his pack of smokes on the table but Pink held up his hand and waved it dismissively,

'Nah man, I quit. I'll just get another coffee,' he said, gesturing to a waitress to come over. Clearly she hadn't seen him in the diner before because she came as soon as he called her and smiled sweetly down at them both. If she'd known what a bastard he was when it came to the bill she probably would have just skipped straight to spitting in his cup, Vic thought lightly.

'Yeah can I get a refill, and my friend here, whaddya want Blonde?'

Vic deliberately ate breakfast ( - could you fuckin' believe they stopped serving McDonald's breakfast at 10.30 these days? - ) before he came, so that he didn't have to spend any longer than absolutely necessary sat in a booth opposite this guy.

'Coffee, sweetheart,' Vic said to the waitress with a nod. He didn't want no broad hawking into his drink.

'Sure thing,' she replied tiredly, already walking away from them. Vic slid a Lucky Strike out of the carton and contemplated asking Pink if he minded. 'Yes I do' would only have encouraged him though. He flicked his lighter and held the flame to his cigarette, taking his time about the whole thing, glancing up and squinting at Mr. Pink through a veil of smoke. His gaze was perpetually nervous, and between occasional sweeps of his index finger across the sugar-sprinkled table he would look up to scan the car park through the window just over Vic's shoulder. Vic smoked and Mr. Pink fidgeted until their coffee was set down between them.

'Joe ain't sendin' anybody else, if that's who you're looking for,' Vic muttered, batting Pink's hand away from the coffee pot and pouring his own cup first. He gave the gesture little thought, and Pink gave it little acknowledgement, surprise giving his face a comically animated appearance – but it was Vic's comment that had evoked it.

'Who says I was expectin' anyone?' Pink replied, but he stopped scanning the parking lot every five seconds after that with an air of resigned apprehension.

The silence wasn't comfortable, Vic interpreted that much from the way Mr. Pink concentrated on every action he made as he shredded a napkin into a chewed up little heap. It didn't bother him though, but it was bothering Pink. When the annoyance of watching somebody practically squirming opposite him and making ridiculously soft, inconsistent _rip-rip-rip...-rip-rip _noises outweighed the possible annoyance of talking to the little bastard Vic cleared his throat and leaned forward.

'So you've known Joe since you were a kid, hey?'

Mr. Pink considered this. How much could that little nugget of information really hurt him, if Blonde got caught? He figured it was harmless evidently,

'Yeah. Started small time for him you know, running errands and shit. How 'bout you?' he said cautiously. Vic just nodded and finished his drink, scooting out of the booth.

'I'm going to settle up the bill. Put the fuckin' tip down.'

He wasn't shocked to find he'd been completely ignored upon returning to the booth to pick up his suit jacket and there was no tip, just a sprinkling of napkin. Mr. Pink was in the parking lot waiting for him.

'You're a cheap son of a bitch,' Vic said in all seriousness as he approached the lanky man and searched his jacket for his car keys. His expression didn't match his tone: he was amused.

'Whaddya gonna do,' Mr. Pink replied rhetorically.

'All I'm sayin' is it's _weird_ goin' into a jewellery store with another man these days,' Pink sighed, moving to adjust the radio from the station Vic had it tuned to, 'and can we listen to anything that was made in _this_ fuckin' decade please?'

'What in fuck are you talkin' about? Are you an idiot?' Vic responded, pulling up in a parking lot opposite the store.

'I mean people will think we're, you know,' and he made an frantic sort of gesture and probably pulled an equally frantic sort of expression too, but Vic missed it as he reversed into the space. Once he'd changed gears he used his hand to bat Mr. Pink's away from the tuner, giving him a brief but powerfully irritated glare.

'I was talkin' about the radio,' Vic responded. 'And what're you suggestin', Mr. Pink? We go in all five of us, draw about all the attention we can?'

'Forget about it, forget it, I didn't say nothin',' Mr. Pink insisted, eyebrows raised and his voice climbing in pitch.

'Good. Keep it up. Now come on let's get this over with all right?'

* * *

There were two cars. White and Orange in Brown's car, Blue and Pink in Blonde's. Super Sounds of the 70's and Blonde was drumming the beat on the dashboard. Mr. Pink looked focused in the back-seat, though his eyes were obscured by his sunglasses, a furrow of concentration had appeared between his eyebrows. Vic thumbed open the fresh carton of Lucky Strikes and slid one of the cigarettes out, turned it around and placed it back in the box so it sat upside-down next to its brothers. It was a nonsense ritual, but Vic had picked it up somewhere not long after he first started smoking and he still sort of believed it. That was the lucky cigarette now. He didn't look as he selected one, but glanced down as he slid it out. The Lucky still sat nestled in the box, unselected. He wouldn't have good luck today, if he believed the superstition.

'Man you're sat there calm as a Hindu cow and I'm fuckin'... I don't know, I got this gut feelin' you know?' Mr. Pink chattered.

Vic thought of all the cups of coffee he'd laid to waist at breakfast yesterday as though it was business as usual and wondered how many he'd had _that_ morning, the way his hands wouldn't sit still in his lap. Pink talked far too much, that was true, but Vic didn't mind him so bad. It was probably spending a little time around him; he didn't expect anybody actually liked Mr. Pink at first, in fact it'd have to be a real gradual process, and he didn't really expect anybody _liked_ Mr. Pink after three years. He was pretty funny though, Vic handed him that, and he was smart and knew who was in charge; Vic. That was a quality Vic truly appreciated in a person.

He thought maybe if Joe asked him to do a job with a couple of guys again he wouldn't mind working with Pink a second time, if he wasn't a fuck up when it came to the work. He forgot the idea fairly instantly.

'Shut up and relax,' Vic laughed, holding the box out to Mr. Pink over his shoulder.

'I quit, I told you,' Pink responded, frowning at Vic in the rear-view mirror as his hand flicked out and he took one anyway. Vic glanced down at the pack before tucking it away into his pocket and all of the cigarettes were facing the same way,

'You got my lucky, you son of a bitch,' he murmured, tossing his Zippo at Mr. Pink for him to light up.

'Well hopefully none of us gonna need it today right,' Mr. Pink responded, his face orange in the flame for an instant. He clicked it shut and passed it back, taking a grateful drag.

'You just appreciate the fuckin' gesture all right,' Vic laughed, turning the volume up on K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70's weekend, a universal gesture of Shut The Fuck Up Now.

'Yeah I appreciate it, you're a real sweetheart, ain't he?' Mr. Pink said, his whine was mostly drowned out by the radio.


End file.
